


the taste of cherries

by NiciJones



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Cheating, Internal Conflict, M/M, Politics, Ruined marriage, Short Story, non-specific writing, tw: unhealthy description of beauty ideal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 05:27:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16633826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiciJones/pseuds/NiciJones
Summary: Sometimes just because you disagree, doesn't mean you can say it out loud.





	the taste of cherries

**Author's Note:**

> [x](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp8TB_nHJOh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)
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> I am not a US citizen and I mainly was prompted to write this by the post seen above. However, the point that made me write it the way I wrote it is the fact that this is happening not exclusively in the Hammer family. It's not even unique to the US. It's everywhere in first world countries and it's tearing apart families in opinions. We all have to decide individually how to handle this situation. It's easy to hate an American president but when it comes to the people who raised and grew with us this can be much more difficult. 
> 
> While I appreciate kudos and comments, I do not want to start a political discussion about the right way to do the integration. But you are allowed to see this in a much bigger context than just the Charmie one of course but that's what I intended when I wrote it.

He hears about another mass shooting at the breakfast table. It happens too often to be shocked by it now and that scares the shit out of him. He doesn’t show it, not in front of his kids but he worries. Worries about the day that he’s going to hear gunshots when he’s out and about with his family. Or worse, a shooting in the school his daughter attends. It’s one of many things that keep him up at night.  
He doesn’t hide his opinion on the matter. He makes it clear that he’s not going to budge from his position. At least online, where there’s somehow a line between him and the people who surround him. Sometimes he wonders why he’s wired so differently than his whole family. How they can be so blind.  
His wife tells him that she’s arranging a photographer appointment. They need the pictures for the Christmas cards. After all, it’s already November! Family and friends will fawn over another perfect family picture in a perfect world. But he knows it will hurt him, it will hurt the man he loves and he already feels guilty about that. Knows he’ll make a hundred apologies. Maybe they’ll make their own one again to tuck into the drawer of his desk never able to actually show it to anyone. They had done so last year. Printed a selfie of their soft smiles pressed close and glued it on colourful paper, giggling like teenagers when they wrote out Happy Holidays and their names below.  
He looks over again at his daughter who’s sitting next to him stealing an extra bit of Nutella and probably thinking it’s about the worst thing to happen to this world today. 

***

His mother comes to visit a few days later. She’s enamoured by the children as always and tells his wife that she has gotten a bit thinner again and looks better every time. She tells him he’s lucky to have her and that he almost looks like a real American in his red shirt. He smiles and wraps an arm around his wife.  
“I have no idea how she can stand me.” He says and when he presses a wet kiss to her cheek she shoves him away.  
His mother had brought cherries, a whole basket of them. He hates cherries. But she loves them so it hadn’t been rare for her to include them in her baking and cooking. He’d eaten them like a good son. She probably knew but she was happy enough with the fact that he did as he was told.  
Today, they are “happy to agree to disagree,” as she likes to put it. Her look is disappointed nonetheless even if her wide smile wants to make it look fond.  
He wonders if there are any fewer wrinkles on her face. Somehow it seems even less capable of expressing emotions than the last time he saw her.  
“Did you know there is a kind named the _Black Republican Cherry_?” She asks.  
“Really?” His wife asks curiously and takes a cherry out of the basket.  
He feels uncomfortable in their middle. She had always been able to handle her better than him. He’s biting back on the comment about rallying for them to be thrown out of the country so the red cherries could live in peace.  
“Maybe they are something for your baked goods.” His mother suggests.  
“Sure. I’ll make pastries great again with them.” She jokes lightheartedly.  
He wonders if she even noticed what she just said. He wishes with sudden ferocity to be somewhere else. To be someone else. 

***

That evening when he’s brought the kids to bed and his mother has retired into her guest room, he finds his wife in the living room with a face mask on scrolling through Instagram.  
“The kids were happy to see your mom again.” She says.  
He hums and shuffles into the room.  
“I know what you think about her. But really, she’s your family. You have to accept her opinion on these things.” She tells him propping her elbow on the back of the couch as she watches him.  
Red hot anger floods him in an instant. He can’t stop it and before he knows it his restraint is drowning. He feels like he’s about to suffocate. Like they have kept adding stones over the years, one after the other and now he’s going to have to break free or be crushed under their weight once and for all.  
But before he can say anything, his mother comes back, stopping when she sees it’s just the two of them. Her face does something ugly and he’s tired of deciphering it for any real emotion.  
“Sorry.” She snickers. “Didn’t want to interrupt your time alone.”  
This is stupid, he thinks. Everything about this is so stupid. They haven’t had sex in months. She doesn’t want him in the same bedroom because he rarely sleeps and fidgets either way. It annoys her and she needs her beauty sleep. He wants to say that. He wants to shout it but he’s choked up.  
“No, no, please. It’s fine.” His wife says and smiles at her and it makes him feel sick. She doesn’t mind. She just doesn’t mind. And she’s a Texan and his mother had been proud to call her her daughter-in-law since the first day so of course she doesn’t mind but he does and he can’t live with it any longer.  
“You can take your cherries with you when you leave tomorrow.” He says darkly.  
His wife warns him, calls his name in that patronising tone she gets whenever he’s doing something she disapproves of.  
“I don’t like cherries. I hate them. And I hate how heartless you are. How utterly fake. You’re getting uglier with every face lifting but you’re only slowly matching your outside to your inside.” He draws in a ragged breath and knows he’s not going to stop here. He’s going to let everything out.  
“This is not about cherries. This is about people dying, about families being ripped apart, this is about denying someone their basic human rights!” The expressions on their faces are almost comical.  
“I’ve never been able to be myself around you because I thought we could agree to disagree. But this is not happening anymore because this isn’t about whether I like cherries or not.” Something inside him registers that he’s hitting a point of no return but he doesn’t stop.  
“And you know what while we are at it, we are not the happy couple we pretend to be. Perhaps we’ve always loved the idea what we could be able to do for the other more. But I’m sick of wasting away like that. I’ve only got this life and-” He stumbles, suddenly more nervous than angry, his heart racing away with the knowledge what he’s about to say.  
“I’m in love. I’m in love with a man and I’m sick of leaving him and the man I can be when I’m around him. I’m done this with this. I’m done with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> And yes, the Black Republican Cherry does indeed exist.
> 
> Find me on tumblr: [charmie-inspiration](https://charmie-inspiration.tumblr.com/)


End file.
